Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-05-28
THE RUSSIAN DVORNIk.
Pestilent Police Who worry
peaceabIe Citizens.

As when a foreign war threatens VI
have frequent military paradea, so wher
the enemies within the country assume
an attitude dangerous to the interna
peace of the empire, we have parades oil
the city dvorniks before the Governor
General. Since the recent attempts
against the Gar the dvorniks OF Odessa
are frequently mustered in sections, and
officially exhorted 10 watchful sense
of their special duties, and threatened
exemplary punishment in case OF the
slightest remssness. The position of
the dvornik is probably unique in the
social economy Of Europe. His nearest
counterpart is perhaps tie French CEN
cierge, but if we except the strictly
domestic guardianship attaching to the
latter, the comparison scarcely applies.
ostensibly, however, the Russian
dvornik is nothing more than the
guardian which his name derivatively
implies, but in reality he is at once
the domestic overseer and factor OF
the house proprietor, who retains
his services and pays his salary,
and the secret spy and agent
of the police. The divisional police in-
spector holds him responsible for watch
ing the movements of incoming and out
going tenants. The new tenant has
scarcely his new quarters before the
dvornik appears to demand his passport
and ticket of residence. You must in
form him whence you came and where
you go, as the case may be. He must
note and report forthwith to the police
everything which either his over
weening curiosity and native cunning
or his dense Ignorance and
stupidity mark as worthy of
the slightest suspicion. You may
not permit friend, or even a neighbor,
to pass a single night under your root
without duly informing the police and
producing the friends passport or resi-
dence ticket under heavy penalty
But, like every other petty official in
Russia, you may easily bribe the dvor-
mix. With nighfall be must post him
self at the main entrance to the residence
in his charge, and remain there unremit.
tingly until midnight, keeping close
watch upon those who come and go.
If he relax this watchfulness Or
absent himself, he is reported by
the secret police agents. who go their
TOuuuS III ciVH uItSSs Iuo uNul lin Will
invent the most plausible excuse in his
domestic capacity in order to gain access
to your private rooms, whenever he has
suspicious or is directed to do go by the
police authorities. Just now, under the
stringent orders of the Third Section,
the dvornk has an onerous post. He
is commonly a retired soldier or mi.
grated peasant. He is not unfrequently
very sly rogue, who has his own special
devices for extorting black mail from
persons whom he may know have had the
misfortune to rest under police suspicion.
He is not less unfrequently an insolent
boor, who defies the power and threats
of dismissal of his employer so long as
he retains the confidence of the police.
The dvornik being what he is, and his
position being such as have briefly de-
scribed, it will be sufficiently obvious
that he is an essential element in the
present universal system of police espoin-
age. He is an especially undesirable
appendage to the household of the
peaceable and law-abiding Citizen
[Odessa Letter.